sean

That got your attention, yes?

The problem we on this board (and in the general population) have in our conversations about hep c and sex is reconciling the fact that there are no firm guarantees of safety, but no loud alarm bells either. There is no need for panic, but it is irresponsible to claim there is no risk--how to balance these? This is still another "grey area" with hep c, needing honest self-examination, careful thought, and judgement.

I mentioned in an earlier post that as far as my amateur readings have gone, every bodily fluid (from a hep c patient) that has been tested for the presence of hep c viral particles has been shown to contain them. This is true of blood as we well know, saliva, tears, semen, and so on.

Further on the worrisome side, although the numbers always seem low, every study I've seen of long term monogamous couples with one infected partner have found a few examples--usually between five and fifteen percent--of both partners being infected, with the high possibility that one (male, no doubt) has infected the other. As Thanbey has pointed out, a few very sophisticated studies have shown similar genetic patterns between the viruses infecting some pairs (i said SOME), increasing the likelihood that one got it from the other. Yes, some pairs no doubt got it together from shared tatooing or drug use behaviors, but the evidence leans to the obvious here--at least a few folks seem to have infected other folks, sexually.

So, it can happen.

On the other hand, this does not make hcv very like the STD's we are used to thinking of--a percentage much higher than five or ten percent will transmit gonorrhea or hiv or herpes if unprotected sex continues long term. (I'm sure the percentage is much higher than five percent for these diseases after even one single encounter never mind for years,
as in the hcv couples that were studied.) Detailed, extended studies of long term couples are not needed to convince us that herpes, for example, is a real risk in unprotected sex.

So hep c is transmissable, but it seems pretty different, too. It is contagious, but much less so than the diseases we usually think of as sexually transmitted.

To me this is like the issue of contagion and hep c in general--outside of sex. That is, we cannot say that there is NO chance of transmitting to others--let's say family members or roommates--but it sure is not contagious in the sense of the flu or chicken pox or something like the more common std's. Common sense and normal cleanliness, with special care about blood, seem to be all that is required to protect the family. But we sure wouldn't want the family going around unaware of the need for these common sense measures--using each others' razors or something. We'd tell 'em about the issue and lay out some guidelines. In other words, to ignore the virus would be foolhardy, but to give up normal family living out of fear of the virus would be crazy.

This means to me that in the case of sex, yes, to ignore possible transmission, to take no precautions, to fail to let a partner know, these would be irresponsible behaviors. But are we on fire with a raging venereal disease? no.

And, very important, today's attitudes toward unprotected sex are so radically different from what they were only 10 or 20 years ago, that the social context is totally transformed. We are now so used to talking about and using condoms and other safe sex practices, and to being careful with people we do not know well, and to discussing honestly (with people we know a bit better) our fears and knowledge, and to saying "No" if no protection is available, and so on, that this is a different world from the one we grew up in.


I regularly read a couple of different hep message boards, and I can't remember reading a single example of a couple or a single person who stopped having sex because of the hep. It's a challenge, but it is surely a surmountable one.

Boy, I had no idea I was gonna go on at this length when I began. I guess the topic gets my attention real well, too! Well, it's worth the time to think about and discuss. We may have a virus, but we're human--sex matters to us, intimacy matters, affection matters, honesty matters---just like BEFORE we got diagnosed. Only now, we have extra reason to face it all a bit more candidly.

My thoughts and opinions, only, as always.

Peace----

sean